Director:Ryûhei Kitamura

Writers:Ryûhei Kitamura, Yudai Yamaguchi

Storyline

Set in the present where a group of ruthless gangsters, an unknown woman
and an escaped convict have met, unwittingly, in The Forest of
Resurrection, the 444th portal to the other side. Their troubles start
when those once killed and buried in the forest come back from the dead,
with the assistance of the evil Sprit that has also come back, come
back from ages past, to claim his prize. The final standoff between
Light and Dark has never been so cunning, so brutal and so deadly. This
is where old Japanese Samurai mysticism meets the new world of the
gangster and the gun. Gruesome, bloody and positively bold.

Versus Reviews..

Boy, oh, boy. They
don't make them like this anymore and boy, do I wish I had written this
flick. This is a movie living and breathing (so to speak) cult
following. "Versus" is a thrilling, fast and furious
action-horror-comedy-martial arts actioner directed by Ryuhei Kitamara
and features a bizarre and original plot line that's virtually
nonexistent.

The irony is, even though it's original, the film
spends very little time explaining its more complicated bits and gets
great mileage out of the Japanese actors, none of whom have real names,
other than two or three-word descriptions like the grungy, tough-talking
anti-hero "Prisoner KSC2-303" or "The Girl" or "Yakuza Leader with
Butterfly Knife." Real deep characters, huh?

The plot is simple,
if confusing, and all seven minutes of it occur within the first few
scenes: In Japan's "Forest of Resurrection," two escaped convicts are on
their way to making a rendezvous with a group of fellow gangsters. A
shoot-out occurs over a disagreement between KSC2 and the Yakuza leader
regarding a kidnapped young woman in the trunk of his car - The Girl;
one of the men is killed, and so is KSC2's buddy.

KSC2 and The
Girl run off into the forest, but after he, and each of the gangsters
put 50 bullets into the reanimated corpses of KSC2's buddy and the dead
gangster. Soon, KSC2, The Girl, and the gangsters realize something is
not right about the woods they had set up as a prearranged meeting spot,
and it isn't long before they're all emptying clip after clip into the
zombified corpses rising up from their shallow graves in the forest
floor. (On a side note, I don't think any of the gangsters ever run out
of ammunition.)

As it would turn out, the gangsters have been
using the forest as a burial ground for their victims, and they're
coming back to settle a score with their killers. Since this is the
Forest of Resurrection, all the bodies of slain gangsters are rising
from the dead and fighting against their living enemies. That's about
all there is to the plot, and all you need to know.

This is a
strange gem right here, folks. I don't think there's single production
in Hollywood that could touch this movie in terms of style and subject
matter. It looks fantastic, really giving the woods a life of its own
(so to speak), and the mood of the film is effectively surreal. (It kind
of reminds me of "The Evil Dead" in a few ways.) "Versus" ultimately
plays out like a collision between every low-budget zombie movie, John
Woo shoot-'em-up picture, and action movie we've ever seen. Now in
Hollywood, ladies and gentlemen, we call that originality.

"Versus"
is a skillful blend of each genre and it never loses sight of the main
conflict between escaped convicts and gangsters; the zombies are merely a
nuisance - who at first appear to be an interference with shadowy
gangland activities. But as it would turn out, however, there's more to
the story, and the Forest of Resurrection, as well as the zombies
somehow figure into a plot that's best explained by the main villain of
the picture, a stranger who I presume is The Man (since as I said before
none of the characters have real names), who seeks The Girl to use her
in his quest to achieve immortality, or something like that.

It's
also pretty funny too. Much of the comedy in this movie arises from one
panicky gangster member and two horribly disfigured police officers
(whom I'm not sure are dead and resurrected or just badly injured) who
have vowed to bring down the escaped convicts. And the corny one-liners
(ever-present in the American dubbed version) will definitely get you
laughing at its attempts to sound cool to our braindead audiences.

Even
though "Verses" is not rated, it's extremely bloody with enough
over-the-top gore to please any American gorehound or fan of zombie
pictures. It's also got enough martial arts action and Woo-style gunplay
to satisfy anyone who's gone into the film thinking this is a samurai
picture (from looking at the DVD cover art).

"Versus" will
definitely win on the cult circuit; whether it's ready to take on the
American mainstream is a question that only time will answer. We'll just
have to wait and see who the winner of that titanic battle will be...